


it's not nice when girls die

by lavenderss



Category: Elite (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Eating Disorders, Gen, I don't know how to tag this, Non-Linear Narrative, Trauma, wintergirls - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-01
Updated: 2021-02-01
Packaged: 2021-03-12 09:40:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,088
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29133441
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lavenderss/pseuds/lavenderss
Summary: .. a body found in a hotel room ….. alone ..When Carla was a real girl, she would let Lu curl her hair, sitting on the edge of her marble bathtub. But Carla's not a real girl anymore.They're seventeen and one of them is dead.
Relationships: Carla Rosón Caleruega & Lucrecia "Lu" Montesinos Hendrich, Carla Rosón Caleruega/Samuel García Domínguez, past Carla/Polo
Comments: 10
Kudos: 18





	it's not nice when girls die

**Author's Note:**

  * For [CarlaDuquette](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CarlaDuquette/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Best Friends Forever](https://archiveofourown.org/works/29088888) by [CarlaDuquette](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CarlaDuquette/pseuds/CarlaDuquette). 



> this idea came to me after reading Best Friends Forever (it's amazing and also this note might be a bit of a spoiler if you haven't read it so go read that first- you absolutely should because it's truly amazing).  
> basically, i thought about the roles being reversed, then i thought about in which scenario that could happen, and that brought to my mind the novel Wintergirls by Laurie Halse Anderson. this is heavily inspired, style- and plot- (kind of) wise by that book, so if you've read that, you'll see a ton of similarities (and no i'm not even calling the actual copying copying, i'm calling it inspiration lmao). and yes the title is a line from that book.  
> eating disorder trigger warning. also, if it wasn't clear: death.  
> (oh also: this wasn't originally even supposed to have carmuel, but i... couldn't help myself.)

.. a body found in a hotel room 

.. alone ..

It's not nice when girls die.

**_i._ **

“We didn't want you to hear from the news or at school,” her mother says. Carla's staring at the ground, but she can see the expression of vague remorse, pursed lips, _inconvenience_. It reflects off the kitchen tiles.

“This must feel awful,” reaches her.

No, it doesn't feel _awful_ . It doesn't _feel_ at all.

“Your dad and I have started to look for support options already,” she hears. “Of course, this will not be easy to heal from, but Carla, we want to make sure that you know you're not alone.”

Clearly. Which is why her father is _delegating_ the problem to a therapist.

She realizes too soon that her mother is stiffly hugging her. She's colder than the marble beneath her bare feet. Why are they even in the kitchen? They never go to the kitchen.

“I'm fine,” Carla says. It sounds strange, like a lie she isn't even aware of. But the opposite isn't the truth, either. “We barely even spoke this year.”

Beatriz retrieves. Short-lived relief flashes over her features, but she gets it under control quickly, silently.

Nobody talks in here. And even if they do, it's never the truth.

**_ii._ **

Carla climbs - _floats_ \- up the stairs, one at a time. Her movements are languid, unhurried, but pulse is hammering in her ears.

It doesn't feel like anything right now, but it _will_. It will because she has the dead girl waiting for her in the room upstairs, a dead girl with a million unanswered questions and twice as many compunctions.

The dead girl was good at making her feel things, rage and anger and biting flair and _guilt_. Carla never let it show.

She won't relent to a dozen of voice messages with two little ticks at the bottom, either.

(Twelve missed calls, then it starts.)

_Carla, please, pick up. I need you. Fuck- I'm so- Carla please- I miss you, please. Call me. I'm so fucked._

_I took it too far. You'll know what to do, I can't-_

_I need you. Please._

The sobs in the background sound like an exotic animal's. Carla stands in the middle of her room.

_Call me, Carla, please-_

Her name from the afterlife makes her feel strangely indifferent. It hears just the same as if whoever else says it.

She turns off her phone, slips under the covers. Feathers and cotton and cold heat.

**_iii._ **

Her mother and father are waiting at the dining room table like a little welcome commando, shielded by a border of orange juice and yogurt parfaits and tea. It's so ridiculous that Carla feels a tiny bubble of hysterical laughter making its way up her throat. Here's her father, his eyes nervously ticking between headlines on the paper (prop). Here's her mother, nibbling on a croissant (distraction).

“My stomach's upset.”

“Have a little juice at least,” Beatriz says with a smile so obviously desperate that Carla can't bring herself to join the act. Beatriz notices and screams out hopelessly, telepathically.

Paper rustles as the news ( _what do they say?_ ) are put on the desk. Teo's fingers drum on the mahogany.

“Have some grapes at least. You have to eat breakfast.”

Her family never eats breakfast. She never eats breakfast.

 _They_ never eat breakfast either – _Lu_ never eats breakfast.

Lu never _ate_ breakfast.

The letters on the paper jump and dance and squiggle into verbs, all in the past tense. They run in front of her eyes on her own little hi-tech projector, mocking. Carla takes a grape.

“Carla.” The majestic voice sounds in a great, great distance. “Just go to school as if everything's normal – and try not to think about it too much, okay?”

The violet under Carla's eyes pushes back into her face. The poison and sleep-deprivation and despair and lies will be sucked in by her pores and infiltrate her bloodstream and thicken it with their purulence and then the venom she'd been keeping outside until now will finally circulate through her as she deserves and then she won't have enough oxygen in her blood and she'll _die_.

_How did she die?_

“Who told you about Lu?” Carla asks, feeling the green skin of the fruit in between her thumb and pointer finger. Overly sweet pus comes out.

“Ventura called.” Syllables: unstressed (ven), stressed (tu). Repeat (ra; called). A perfect metrum in her father's words. “I can't even imagine how hard this must be for you.”

Carla remembers how they were reading A Midsummer Night's Dream by Shakespeare and had to note the iambic pentameter and mark under the words how the voice changes as they read the lines. Lu, of all people, threw her highlighter on the desk and called the (easy) exercise impossible and stupid.

Lu always speaks – _spoke_ – with her tone steadily rising, the last word dropping down with the heavy weight of condescension being thrown at her victim. Of course she would struggle with the iambic pentameter-

_Don't think about it._

“Is Ramón driving me today?”

Of course he is. Carla didn't think for a second that her father would subject himself (or her) to the torture of a car-ride filled with forced sympathy and unspoken questions and suffocating heaviness lingering in the air.

**_iv._ **

Guzmán already knows, so nothing could be expected from there, but Cayetana makes up for it with the sound that she eludes in the moment of silence Azucena had definitely purposefully planned. Carla pictures her pacing back-and-forth in her office, mumbling words under her breath to sound equal parts strong and shaken, appropriate for an authority.

_Something happened to your classmate last night. Lucrecia-_

She would hate to be addressed Lucrecia. Even in her greatest moments of glory, she hated it.

Lu's greatness doesn't – _didn't_ – depend on her name, and she refused to give it any credit for her _own_ success, the person she had become with zero outside help. _Call me Lu_ was the second thing she'd said to Carla when they met in the hallway of Las Encinas at twelve. The first thing was: _is that a collectible?_

(It was; a Prada Saffiano handbag.)

Carla's eyes drop into her Louis Vuitton purse, a different one than what she usually brings to school. Her lipstick has unclasped and is leaving ruthless stains on the monogrammed lining.

_Was there blood?_

..a body found in a hotel room..

_Don't think about it._

Cayetana is crying and hushed comforts poison the air. Carla bites her lip until it bleeds and wishes she could be _anywhere,_ not here. She swallows the metallic taste; it burns in her throat. It feels forbidden.

**_v._ **

He speaks first. (Naturally.)

“I can't believe it.”

Carla nods, nervously toying with her ring. A string of innocent daisies buried in silver. Lifeless for a subjective, human perception of beauty.

(Lu doesn't – _didn't_ – even like silver.)

“Me neither.”

There's not much to say, but they sit down at the cafeteria table, wordlessly.

“Are you going to the support group?”

She's grateful for his easy questions. “It's not like it's really voluntary, you know.” Pause. “Especially for people who knew her well.”

Silence. “Yeah.” Breath in. “But it'll be useless.”

“Yeah.”

Guzmán shifts in his seat, takes a gulp from his water bottle. “Carla-”

She forces herself to look at him for the first time (in _months_ ). He drops his gaze in answer; clears his throat. “She left me a voice message.”

Pause; a heavy swallow. Guzmán's throat must have gotten dry with the kind of news that water can't wash down; there's irritation and blaring red and the throat closing up as the words refuse to come out. Carla stares at the vending machine and waits.

(What else is she supposed to do?)

“She said,” it's almost a whisper now, a whisper and a stutter, more like if it was Polo speaking. _Where's Polo?_ “She said something like: _tell Carla she won without even trying. As always_.”

Her heart beats twice in quick succession, then returns back to its normal pace.

“Do you – do you have any idea what she was talking about?”

“No,” Carla doesn't even savour the lie before she says it. It was an instinctive response, not a calculated act of protection. “I have no idea.”

“Well,” Guzmán exhales, heavy, bearing-the-world-on-his-shoulders kind of heavy, “I- we both know how Lu was.”

**_vi._ **

Lu and Carla had been best friends for a week when they synchronously decided to finally do something about their horrendous fatness.

“Let's lose three kilos,” Carla said. “That should be enough.”

“No. Five,” Lu argued. Carla had already learned in their short spanning friendship that Lu liked to push everything to the extremes.

Dieting with someone had seemed to do the magic. Finally, the urges to eat sweets weren't impossible to combat. All it took was a memory of Lu (her starting weight in ocean blue glitter pen half a kilo lower) resurfacing in Carla's brain every time she felt like having chocolate.

By the end of the week, it was Carla for whom the scale halted earlier. Lu had stared at the digits; they re-weighed. The numbers didn't budge.

“How much did you eat?”

“What the article said,” Carla shrugged. Her stomach was growling.

“Me too,” Lu mumbled, though it felt like it was mostly for herself. “And I halved the portions yesterday and today.”

Carla left an hour later and ate honey-glazed salmon and roasted rosemary potatoes for dinner. She wasn't _fat_ fat, after all, and the slightly flatter stomach she'd noticed was absolutely not a rightful compensation for the shaking and dizziness and hunger and overall discomfort.

That was the end of it for her, but it was just the beginning for Lu.

**_vii._ **

Not even international schools with six-figure tuitions can find it in the budget to find a good psychologist for a group support session. At least that's what runs through Carla's head when the tired, middle-aged, overweight woman with silver strands in her hair makes them hold hands to _let them feel the trust flowing through the circle._

Maybe there's no such thing as good group therapy sessions.

Guzmán next to her is smirking mockingly. Carla shares his sentiments, but that doesn't mean that she thinks his clearly displayed annoyance is appropriate.

Polo is to her other side; his palm is sweaty.

“I'm sorry I'm late,” somebody opens the door to hell.

Carla freezes at the sound of the well-known voice. Polo instantly stiffens, Guzmán turns his head.

_Jesus fucking christ, get the fuck out._

Samuel walks over to sit in between two random girls who knew Lu from model UN. They share clear disdain, the looks cutting through him. He doesn't seem to care.

_Get the hell out, idiot._

The psychologist starts blabbering again. Polo is unable to hold his eyes from ticking to Samuel. He'd dropped Carla's hand the second he saw him.

 _Fuck, fuck, fuck._ Somebody's strangling Carla's esophagus with an invisible rope; her throat is fine on the outside, but on the inside, it's narrowing. The the tube will be too thin to let the air molecules through – it's like drinking bubble tea with a normal-sized straw -

(Green, mango pearls, no sugar. Lu's order was so bitter that Carla didn't understand how she could even stomach it.)

\- and then she'll _die_.

_Did she choke?_

“What techniques do you know that people commonly use to cope with grief?”

**_viii._ **

“What are you doing here?” Carla hisses. Samuel had excused himself to go to the bathroom, and when the useless old fat lady asked someone to go get some markers, she volunteered. “You hate Lu.”

“I didn't _hate_ her,” Samuel murmurs, eyes on the tips of his stupid beaten Vans. Carla wants to crush his toes with her heel.

He looks up. Puppy dog eyes, brown and honey. Like molten sunrise. (Lu's eyes are much darker, piercing instead of warming. Is she in the morgue, her eyes unable to stop staring into a burning light? Does the fluorescent lamp feel like it's being examined under a microscope with a special lens of judgment, like Carla knows Lu's stare can do?)

“I just- wanted to see if you were fine.”

_Oh, for fuck's sake._

“Helping me with your _presence_?” Carla snorts. “You think too highly of yourself, Samuel.”

He ignores her. “You were best friends.”

 _Were._ “Not anymore.” Carla fights the urge to tread on the spot nervously. “And you know about that very well. Why else,” dry laugh, it leaves her throat on its own, but at least it seems to have opened up again, “Would I have spent so much time with you if I had somewhere better to be?”

He twitches now, hurt flashes through the caramel. (Too sweet; but Werther's sugar free was the perfect fix. 8 calories per piece.)

He can't hide it. Carla almost feels bad.

_Almost._

“Say what you want, but I've gotten to know you,” he fixes his eyes on her. She's being wrapped in sticky, sugary, buttery fibers. Those decorative caramel strings they put on top of cakes in that little café they used to go to when-

“And you're upset.”

Now Carla should scoff, turn around and leave.

“ _Upset_ ?” The tears are audible, if not visible. She wonders for a brief moment if Samuel knows her as well as he thinks and heard them, too. She pushes the thought out of her mind. _Bullshit_ . “Lu is-” she shivers violently, an arctic storm in her body, “- _gone_ and I should be _upset_ like I got a D in biology?”

“Carla,” Samuel says. Her hand moves on its own accord. She wants to hit something, it's his own fault he's there-

He wraps her in a hug.

A tear falls down. Then another one.

It happens in such quick succession that she realizes belatedly that she's sobbing. Must've been for a very long time, too, seeing as Samuel's blazer is drenched.

He holds her close while she's rattling, teeth clacking, fingers clutching on navy.

 _Pathetic, Carla._ It's like a whisper roaming through the hall. She can't turn around, but she'd swear Lu's Miu Miu sandals are clacking. _Even after I'm dead, you still choose him over me._

She breathes out into Samuel's shoulder, a sickly cigarette smell (his mother's, not his own) mixing with drugstore aftershave. _You know I'd be there for you no matter what. All you had to do was call._

The polyester fills her nostrils and she can't breathe.

 _What do_ I _have to do to make you notice me?_

“We should go back.” She wipes her eyes on his jacket, then straightens her posture. One look from Samuel and she realizes that she definitely can't go back like this. “Right. I'll go to the bathroom.” Pause. Puppy dog eyes lingering on her, now sad without anything else. Carla clears her throat and her gaze drops to her toes. “Thanks.”

“I won't tell anyone,” he says, infinitely serious.

She tastes another _thank you_ on the tip of her tongue.

_Jesus fucking christ, Carla, get your shit together. Crying on fucking pizza boy's shoulder. Do you seriously not have any better options?_

Lu is a mean ghost. Carla doesn't want to turn around.

She does, because she doesn't want to prolong this Samuel encounter, either. Noone's there, obviously.

Fucking shit.

**_ix._ **

“How was school?”

Her mother's attempts at comfort are pathetic. How is an uncomfortable guard waiting for her behind the door supposed to help? Carla doesn't know the answer, and she doesn't ask.

“Fine.” Pause. “They brought in a therapist.” Exhale. “I don't think I need to go see another one.” Calculation. “She wasn't the best, but everyone's going through the same thing, so I have a lot of people to lean on.”

“Carla, we just want to make sure that you get all the best help you can get, so that it'll be easier for you to-”

“I got over Marina on my own,” Carla barks out before she can stop herself. Instant regret. Irreversible damage. No other choice. “How is this any different?”

Beatriz sighs, like Carla is a petulant child throwing a tantrum, keeping her from her book club duties. Carla wants to scream. _I never asked for you to be here!_

“There'll be a service on Sunday.”

Sunday, Lu would like that – everyone disrupting her weekend plans for her, and Christ's day. The resurrection day. Carla has a stupid scenario flash through her mind of Lu jumping out of the casket, yelling at someone because they dressed her wrong. What dress would she pick? A black, tragic one, or white like for an angel? If they let Carla dress her, go through her entire closet before the memorial, she'd be able to tell-

“How did she die?”

She couldn't stop it. Beatriz' eyes form slits and Carla wishes she'd tried harder.

“They're still investigating it,” her mother says eventually, fingers nervously interlacing, nails sliding over each other. “Carla-”

“I have to go do my homework,” she saves herself. She can't deal with another ice-cold embrace. She can't deal even more with the unlikely possibility of her mother's touch somehow getting to her and herself ruining the pearl dress with snot. She's had enough today, tomorrow, _forever._

_Don't think about it._

..a body found in a hotel room, alone..

Marina was ten, Marina had cancer and Marina was in a hospital, tubes everywhere, her family around her bed. Ten year old Carla in the waiting room, clutching on a teddy bear they'd given her like she was five.

Marina was _supposed_ to die. It sounds horrible, but it is the truth.

Nothing about Lu was supposed to die.

.. _alone_..

Carla runs up the stairs and replays the voice messages.

_Carla Carla Carla Carla Carla Carla Carla Carla Carla Carla Car-_

She'd been wrong in the morning. Her name sounds sharper, _icier_ from the mouth of a ghost. A ghost also doesn't need her in an alert state to be loud, _heard_.

_Carla Carla Carla Carla Carla Carla Carla Carla Carla Carla Carla Carla-_

It's all around her, floating in freezing currents. They'd seen Harry Potter together. (Lu was terrified when she learned that Carla hadn't seen it, and forced a marathon.) Carla imagines this is what a dementor's kiss must feel like.

Everything's cold. If she breathed out, she'd be able to see it. ( _You would have to have a heart for that, honey.)_

Lights out, crash, red and slow-motion and complete silence and stopped time and Carla opening her eyes and seeing her white, porcelain skin, clean and whole. Next to her in the backseat is Lu, smiling. Blood's gushing from her mouth. “I'm finally here with you, where I'm supposed to be!”

A teddy bear sat between them speaks in Marina's voice. “What is it about you with your best friends?”

Polo's voice, sirens, _cold_. Guzmán.

Yells.

Alcohol.

Throw up.

Blood.

Death, death, death. Hospital bed, hotel room, backseat of a car.

Carla sits in the middle of a great moving panorama, horror-film scenes spinning around her on loop.

_Carla Carla Carla Carla Carla-_

It's always _Carla_.

**_x._ **

She wakes up the next day, puts on eyeliner and goes to school. Math is tired. English is sluggish. Biology attacks all her senses.

(Are they cutting into Lu the same way she's mechanically dissecting a pig lung, more stabbing into it than anything else?)

_Did she choke?_

She sits with Guzmán and Polo and Ander and Cayetana at lunch, doesn't listen, doesn't care. She hides from everyone with her phone.

_A seventeen-year-old female body was found in the Starlight hotel by a member of the cleaning staff. The girl had been identified as a student of one of Madrid's private international schools. Due to the protection of minors, no further information can be provided. The police have stated that investigation is still going on to rule out the possibility of violent death. “Suicide seems like the more likely option, but we have to be completely sure,” Sara Jimenéz, the chief of the Madrid police department, stated._

_Cases of suicide among adolescents have been steadily rising since the beginning of the decade. Matteo Esascena, a psychologist specializing in clinical therapy for adolescents, told us: “The teenagers of today aren't the same as we used to be at their age. They're just as impulsive, but they have the internet with every piece of information they could need at their fingertips. It takes one google search to find out how to kill themselves – there's forums for all kinds of things, groupchats of depressed and suicidal children. I wish I was kidding, but you can find twelve-year-olds daydreaming about people coming to their funeral because “they'll finally care” and others replying with “relatable”._

_This is extremely dangerous for the development of our youth – it makes them feel like they belong in a community by being suicidal, it almost makes depression a “trend”. They build their personality around this. Naturally, most of these impressionable young people will not carry out their threats – only 8% of all suicide attempts are successful.But still, there's the 8%. And especially among young people, the count is rising exponentially-”_

Carla slaps her phone on the table display-down, recklessly. Ander gives her a surprised look.

Lu isn't like that. Lu _wasn't_ like that at all – maybe she wanted attention, sure. But she wasn't like _this_ , spiteful and wanting to make people suffer (to this extent, at least) and wanting to _die_ . Carla wants to yell at that stupid fucking therapist. A _trend_. A piece of shit, that's what he is.

Maybe if they didn't all suck so bad, the _suicide rate among teenagers wouldn't be rising exponentially._

_Did you do it, Lu?_

“Are you okay, Carla?”

“As much as everybody else,” she answers. She feels how her blood's slowing down, freezing. It's gaining on volume. Soon, her blood vessels won't withstand the pressure and will explode in a million crystals of ice, shards cutting into her lungs, stomach, liver, brain, and then she'll _die_.

_Lu?_

Carla picks up her phone under four inquisitive pairs of eyes and resolutely swipes away the tab with the article. Polo coughs.

**_xi._ **

“Are you okay?”

“What do you think?”

People trying to help are exhausting. That's why she prefers to be with Guzmán these days, because he doesn't try to help at all.

“No,” Polo says silently, like they're twelve again and his nerves are wrecked because he's asking her out. (It was clear she'd say yes, but Polo's brain works in strange ways. Sometimes, Carla can understand it, but others, it just makes her want to shake him by the shoulders. Today is one of those days.)

“I haven't slept in three days,” Carla blurts out before she can stop it. “I just wish all of this could be over.”

“What?” Polo eyes her warily. He's like a scared doe.

“Everything,” Carla exhales, ignoring Polo's abrupt jerk. She still recites the clause, though, because insurance is necessary in this situation. “No, I'm not gonna kill myself, Polo.”

Samuel walks out of the classroom with the intention to drop his book in his locker, sees Carla and Polo's back, freezes instantly after a second of eye-contact and turns on his heel.

_For fuck's sake._

“Do you wanna get a drink?” Carla lets herself float away, someone entirely different taking over her body. The real Carla is watching all of this shitshow from afar, Lu next to her with a bag of skinny popcorn. _What a bunch of idiots guys are, huh?_

“Now that Lu's gone, you wanna talk,” Polo doesn't have enough courage to look into the eyes of the on-earth shell version of Carla, but the above-Carla sees it, and that rage is enough for her to want to return to her normal body.

“Or are you tired of the supermarket-brand beer?”

Final straw.

“I'd rather drink carton wine on my own than go out with you,” Carla points her blades at Polo's heart and shoots. He doesn't budge, but Carla knows Polo. This should work.

“Why did you ask, then?”

“Forget it.”

He grabs her wrist when she's turned around and leaving. Her skin is dry and prickle, peeling off in scales.

“This doesn't change anything, right?”

Carla breathes out. Obvious, predictable _. Selfish_. She can deal with all that.

“Of course not.”

Polo doesn't even try to conceal his relief. He breathes it out and Carla breathes it in. It's odourless, like carbon monoxide.

**_xii._ **

When Carla was a real girl, she would let Lu curl her hair, sitting on the edge of her marble bathtub, drinking a glass of champagne as a “warm-up” before the club. Lu liked to be prepared, and she claimed that the first glass always hit her the most. Carla had her doubts, but she didn't care. They'd get into a cab, sparkles and glitter and white teeth shining into the night, they'd kiss their boyfriends on the dance floor and then they'd each go to their house, just to meet up on a Sunday morning and share the pleasant nausea, coffee cups in hand on their leisurely stroll through Madrid.

When Carla was a real girl, she'd sip her vanilla latté and not comment on Lu's double espresso. She wouldn't comment on the too-long bathroom trips, either, she would defend Lu when she didn't eat lunch at school or only get salad for dinner at the Nunier's house. She'd lend Lu her mascara when her eyes were puffy and she wouldn't try to help, because she knew what would happen.

(“You started with this, Carla, so don't tell me what I should and shouldn't do now! It's all _your_ fault!”)

When Carla was a real girl, she had a best friend with bulimia and a boyfriend with anxiety. When Carla was a real girl, she felt the weight of other people's problems crushing her bones every second of every day. What helped was to pretend that they weren't there – that it was normal to feel so heavy.

(“You're too heavy,” Guzmán had said when Lu twisted her ankle at the club one night and the spring breeze wasn't enough to cool him down. “I can't anymore-”

Carla shamefully tug on Polo's forearm to let go of her. They'd made it a bridal-style race home out of solidarity.

Carla knew Lu would make herself throw up that night, but she didn't text her. She knew she'd make it even worse.)

Carla's not a real girl anymore, but the problems of other people are apparently capable of weighing down even an unreal, intangible body.

**_xiii._ **

Lu wasn't with them that night, celebrating the graduation with her father who'd come from Mexico. Carla was happy to see her so excited.

Polo had gotten a mini car for making it through the school year. His anxiety attacks would apparently be cured if he had a means of easy transportation.

Unfortunately, the mini-car only had two seats. Guzmán had made endless fun of Polo for boasting about being able to drive them to the club without realizing this fatal flaw. When Carla saw how Polo's jaw was squaring and his throat was gulping down dry air, she came up with the brilliant idea to borrow Andrea's sports car. (“It's almost the same, no?”) Crisis averted.

The club was a blast. Carla had never realized how much fun Guzmán and Polo could be. Summer was in the air, no tests to study for in the near future, and once, just for once, there wasn't a tension in the background from Lu and Guzmán being on the verge of yet another fight.

She clung on Polo, got too close to Guzmán at some points – nothing out of line, of course, her boyfriend was right there, but Carla knew how Lu could get. Special rules applied to Guzmán.

She couldn't even feel too guilty. Music and too much tequila and Polo's hands on her waist and Guzmán's bright, boyish smile as he made fun of the _royal couple_ and giggles and her feet cramping because of her heels but she wouldn't stop dancing anyway.

It was three a.m. when they'd decided to wrap it up, Carla drunk on touch and alcohol. She couldn't wait to get home, get rid of her dress, Polo's face softened by adoration and in a beautiful hazy blur. A hint of mystery makes everything twenty times better. She couldn't wait to fuck him.

In his stride, she stumbled out of the club. “I love you,” she kept repeating. Polo was glowing, beaming, Polo was _hers_ and everything in her life was perfect. “I love you.”

Guzmán behind them kept making only half-pretend throw-up sounds, but she ignored him. They sat him into the passenger seat – he was definitely the most out of it – and strapped his seatbelt.

“Are you really okay to drive?” Carla asked, words slurring in her brain. Polo, her Polo, tugged her hair back, kissed her temple and said it was just five minutes, _it didn't make sense to get a cab._

Obviously. Carla climbed into the backseat, eyelids falling down with exhaustion. Everything was hazy and heavenly and perfect and-

-frozen.

Nobody screamed, or at least she didn't hear it.

She didn't _see_ it.

She opened her eyes to the sound of her own hyperventilating. Her arms seemed whole; her legs seemed whole. Her head was fine; she touched it. Nothing was bleeding. Nothing was upside down.

Polo's hands were gripping on the steering wheel, so white that they could be marble. She calmed as his breath spiked. She'd done this before. She knew how to handle it.

“Polo, look at me. Look at me, I'm here.” His hand was so hot it was searing, but she still took it in hers. “Breathe with me. Four counts in, five counts out. One, two-”

“The pills- Guzmán-”

_Fuck._

Guzmán's head laid on the dashboard, a string of blood framing his forehead. His eyes were shut close – _shut_ as in never to be opened again.

“I didn't- I didn't-”

Carla's heartbeat slowed so much that she could be a snake. She felt the temperature in the car drop.

“Polo, look at me. Look at me.” He did. “Did Guzmán take something, too?”

He gave out an inaudible sound, like a wounded animal, throwing his head back and shutting his eyes. Carla couldn't deal with another one, _blind_. She squeezed his hand so much it hurt him.

“Polo. Look at me.” He did. “Did Guzmán take some of these pills or did he only drink?”

“Just- Just d-drink.”

“Okay.”

Polo was staring at her, pupils dilated, skin green. Only their car lights and Carla's adrenaline spike made it possible to see. Otherwise, it was pitch black. They were alone.

“We have to get him into the driver's seat,” Carla said, voice cold and not her own. Polo didn't move. She let go of his hand, looked outside the window before opening the door and getting out the car. Polo was still inside; her hand opened his door, practically dragged him out. Walked over to the other side, forced Polo to help her carry – _roll_ – over Guzmán. His head hit the steering wheel.

“My mum's gonna kill me,” Polo kept repeating. It got into Carla's skull and dully beat on it from the inside.

“Polo. Listen to me.” He did. Carla stood on the edge of the road, wind blowing her hair away from her face. She felt like a preacher for a second, or maybe an immortal. “It was Guzmán's idea to take the car. We thought he was the most sober out of the three of us, that's why he drove. He refused to leave the car there because he was scared your mums would find out.”

Silence. Polo stared at her like he'd never seen her before.

“Repeat it.”

“I-” he stuttered.

“Repeat it, Polo!”

“Guz- Guzmán wanted to take the car. He didn't want my mums to find out, which is why he insisted on driving. We thought he was the most sober out of us, that's why he drove.”

“Good,” Carla nodded, curtly. Now, coming out of someone else's mouth, it drove tears to her eyes. “Now, I'm gonna call an ambulance.”

“C-Car-”

“It's fine,” she mumbled frantically, fingers shaking above the green icon. “Remember what I told you. Guzmán's drunk, he doesn't remember anything-”

“C-”

“What's your emergency?” The woman's voice was calm, matter of fact. _Nice._ Carla swallowed and burst out in tears.

“I- My friend- the car crashed and- and he's not- P-Please, come here-”

Polo's expression was blank, eyes fixed on her face. He didn't seem to see the violent shakes, purple trembling lips or spilling tears.

If he had, he would’ve tried to comfort her, wouldn't he?

**_xiv._ **

It worked. Guzmán woke up and Guzmán didn't remember.

His family spent the whole summer hiring the best lawyers, trying to ensure a lenient judge and crafting the perfect psychiatric evaluation – not responsible enough to bear consequences, sane enough not to be checked into a mental institution. _It was the anniversary of his sister's death two days after. He loved her so much, he always tried to make himself forget. Poor boy. No, no, he's strong. Broken, but strong. Yes, I have a contact for a good therapist._

Lu stuck with him through thick and thin. Lu got into a shouting fight with Carla, because _they knew how he gets when he drinks._ “What the fuck were you thinking, _driving_ to the club? What the fuck were you thinking, letting _Guzmán_ drive out of the three of you?”

Lu stuck with Carla through thick and thin, too, because after all, she had been the one to almost die because of _Lu's_ boyfriend. Lu, for someone so good at letting others take the blame, had a devastating sense of responsibility. _I wasn't there for him enough, I didn't realize it was getting so much worse with Marina. None of this would've happened if I'd just gone with you to the club like normal._

It made Carla physically sick.

She and Polo went on their annual trip to Croatia, desperately trying to talk about anything but Guzmán and Lu, but it proved increasingly difficult. Carla had never realized how much her and Polo's happiness depended on Lu and Guzmán's _un_ happiness. _You'd never treat me like Guzmán treats Lu. I'd never be so up in your business like Lu is in Guzmán's. Do you know she checks his phone?_

Now that _they'd_ caused the unhappiness, analyzing it was not amusing anymore. Carla woke up every night covered in cold sweat, dreams of a dead Guzmán, Lu believing he was the one to blame. Dreams of Lu finding out. Dreams of Guzmán remembering suddenly in class, shouting out his epiphany in front of all their friends. _It was Carla!_

She woke up every night, trying to get as far away as she could from the snoring Polo. He slept contently, on his back, lips pouted softly as he huffed out excess air.

Carla broke up with him the last week into the vacation, because she just couldn't stand it anymore.

It was his fault. He crashed the car. He took the pills. He-

If she repeated it enough, it might as well have become true.

Back at school, she ignored Polo (seemingly fine), Guzmán (doing community service twice a week and somehow back in his early, aggressive Marina-mourning stages that Carla had _inadvertently_ summoned back) and Lu (the too-fierce supporter and enabler of Guzmán's outbursts). She ignored every one of her old friends, tried to dope herself with sleeping pills which didn't work and then just gave up on sleeping or _living_ altogether. She went though every day like a ghost, strangely isolated from the world around her. 

Nobody seemed to notice that Carla wasn't one of them anymore.

**_xv._ **

She stares dully at the equations. None of them make sense, and it's not because it's _math_ that doesn't make sense.

It's because nothing makes sense.

There's texts on her phone. There's homework on her desk. There's a new dress hanging in her wardrobe.

Lu would hate that dress, and Carla hates it too, but being comforted by materie is still better than her mother trying her horrendous _best_ to be emotionally supportive. Emotion doesn't exist in this house.

In spite of that, Carla will wear the dress on Sunday, because her mother would be hurt if she didn't. Maybe some superficial traces make an appearance from time to time.

She'll do it. She'll wear the dress for her mother. It's not like it matters, because who else does she have to please?

Lu isn't here.

..alone..

Carla slides down from her chair, hits her head on the spinning seat in the process. She sobs savagely into the carpet, clenching her fists and hitting the ground with them.

She's done a fair share of selfish and horrible things in her life, but this one must be the absolute worst.

**_xvi._ **

She started talking to the new kid, Samuel, who was at the school on a scholarship, mostly because he didn't know anyone or anything that had happened. Of course, he knew about the crash, because they'd all gotten a lecture on driving under the influence the first week in, and he was pretty perceptive. Carla often wondered how much he could sense, how many of the scattered puzzle pieces of the situation he'd managed to put together.

He was – he was different (because he was kind of poor). He was _nice_. He was her only friend – friend with benefits to be soon enough, because Carla had never been too good at abstinence. Besides, when she finally, during a homework session, somehow opened her real-girl and not ghost eyes that saw through people like they were outlines, she'd realized that Samuel was pretty cute.

He'd asked her some questions but she shut them off quickly. Once they started sleeping together, she had some foolproof means of distraction.

He wasn't supposed to be anything else than a short-term cure for her loneliness and a way to forget about what she'd done, but as time progressed, Carla started to see him differently. Carla started to see _herself_ differently. Sometimes, with him, she could just _be._ A real girl again, not the shadow of her own crime.

She was with him the night Lu died. She'd seen her calls, but she put her phone on silent, kicked it away with her foot and leaned down to kiss Samuel on his shitty couch instead.

Then her parents rung the doorbell at one-thirty a.m. because she wasn't picking up her phone.

**_xvii._ **

Lu is _dead_.

It's not an open-casket funeral – _thankfully_ – but it's where it hits Carla nevertheless. The black, the people crying, Lu's parents both in the same room. All of the kids she's known since kindergarten, dressed up like adults and _crying_.

Guzmán's standing by the casket, alone, talking to the white-lacqued wood.

Carla's head spins and she runs to the bathroom to throw up. She hasn't eaten anything, so it's mostly stomach acids and some residual water and regret and regret and regret and lies.

The door of the bathroom opens. A careful, muted voice speaks. “Carla. Are you okay?”

That's it.

She storms out of the stall, screams tasting like puke. “Get out! I don't want you to ask if I'm okay and I don't want your help and I don't want you to care! We're not together, Samuel, and if your tiny rat brain thought we were, consider this a break-up!” She doesn't see him; she's not a real girl anymore, not even fleetingly, and ghost-eyes don't work on normal people. He's pinned to the ground, features curved into the perfect definition of despair, and she couldn't care less. “I just want you to leave me alone!”

“Carla, you're-” he tries to overcome his weakness, but it's hopeless.

“Don't tell me what I am!”

He tries to touch her. She elbows him as she strides towards the door – not on purpose.

She thinks it should hurt more, somehow. Indifference is much worse than hatred.

_Lu Lu Lu Lu Lu Lu Lu Lu Lu Lu please forgive me forgive me forgive me forgive me I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm so so so sorry_

..a body found in a hotel room, alone..

..she called me twelve times, left sixteen messages..

_What does it help that you're sorry? I'm already dead._

**_xviii._ **

“You're so skinny,” Lu said wistfully.

They were changing before their swimming lesson. They were fourteen and hiding in the end bathroom stall.

Carla pulled up her swimsuit. It was cold and her nipples were poking through it; it was a little embarrassing, all the guys and her boyfriend would be there, but whatever. “You too.”

“Not true,” Lu inspected Carla's stomach, lingered where the bellybutton was hidden under the scarlet. Carla felt like at a medical check-up. The elastane was not damp yet, not clinging on her body, thankfully. “How do you do it?”

“I don't know,” Carla shrugged, speaking the truth. She stares at the tiles like there was something super interesting in the seams. “I do a workout video when I feel like I haven't been moving enough. Polo and I run together sometimes.” He sucked even more than she.

She turned around at the sound of the bell.

“You're lying,” Lu hissed in her face. “You're just scared that all of the guys won't pay attention to you if I lose weight.” Then she bowed her head down, stretching out her swimming cap. “Even though you have a boyfriend. It's _pathetic_.”

She opened the door, threw a sickly sweet grin over her shoulder and left Carla stand there with the smell of chlorine and cold.

**_xix._ **

They're seventeen and one of them is dead.

Sometimes, Carla wishes she could be dead, too. A real ghost. Not just a ghost _alive_ . She doesn't belong _anywhere_ now.

Other times, Carla wishes she could turn back time. Go back to the night and return Lu's calls. Call a taxi to the hotel room, call an ambulance, maybe. Or go even further, to that day where Lu told her she could talk to her and Carla said she didn't know where to start and that she was sorry. To the day Lu asked her how she could let Guzmán drive and Carla spat out that he seemed less drunk than he was. (0.19 percent of BCA. He seemed every bit as drunk as he was.)

To the day of the car crash. That was when real Carla vanished. That was the day she signed her best friend's death sentence.

..alone..

Lu died of Booerhaave's syndrome. It wasn't the vodka or the heart arrhythmia or the laxatives making a mess out of it all. It wasn't her electrolytes or her blood pressure.

_Vomiting strenuously enough can rupture the oesophagus._

Lu's body didn't give up, do it for her. She was the prime, the _only_ cause of all her successes and the single downfall.

And the only person who really knew how bad it was, the puking and the laxatives and the fasting and why she felt so faint and why her heart beat at thirty-six beats per minute sometimes, the only person who knew how much hair stuck in Lu's hairbrush every morning or why the hygiene-freak always came with a new fixed cavity from her dentist, the only person who could've helped her, stayed silent.

(Jesus, it's not like I'm gonna die from it,” Lu'd told her once, a bit drunk and a lot more open than normal. “Stop being so overdramatic, Carla. Fifty percent of the female population between the ages of thirteen and twenty-six has induced vomiting for the purpose of losing weight at least once.”)

Carla, just like carbon monoxide or an eating disorder, is a silent killer.

People who didn't even know Lu, like her parents, are in agony over how _the hell they could have not noticed_. There was a teacher training, a voluntary lecture for parents who packed the Las Encinas' gym to the brink, and a terrible eating disorder awareness lesson for the students.

Carla _knew_ and she still didn't notice.

How could it be their fault?

She feels sorry for them. She knows what guilt does to a person, and those innocent people don't deserve any of it.

She also knows that no matter how much someone repeats that you're not to blame, you'll still feel the same, or maybe even worse. And by extent, it _may_ be _everyone's_ fault.

Nobody did anything.

Some are more to blame than others, though.

**_xx._ **

_a week later_

She apologizes to Samuel mostly to get him to leave her alone. She'd figured that if he grows more persistent – annoying – when she gets more rude, more evil, more _terrible_ , it'll drive him off if she's nice.

He accepts her apology and invites her, eyes warm and sticky and not letting her go, for macaroni on his couch, and Carla finds herself yelling.

Instead of crawling on the floor like a beaten dog, yelling back at her as she'd deserve, and on some level, even _want_ , or finally walking away, he grabs her wrist roughly.

It shocks Carla so much that she stares straight into his eyes.

“You're not eating.”

Her pupils widen; the newly exposed bone in her wrist hurts under his touch and Carla, even though this is supposed to be some monumental moment, doesn't start to cry or _feel_.

She stands in the middle of the hallway, Samuel's tugging harshly on her arm, and she can't bring herself to move.

“I know that you think it's your fault you didn't notice or help her until it's too late. But I know what you're doing, I _noticed_ and I won't let _you_ die.”

He's so fucking overdramatic and self-righteous and a fucking complete asshole who has no idea what's going on. Carla jerks her hand away harshly and relishes in a fantasy of spitting in his face.

“Carla, experiment is over. Please,” Samuel says, now closer to begging.

 _Pathetic pathetic pathetic_ , Lu screams in her head.

“You think you know me so well because we used to fuck,” Carla-ghost doesn't look into Samuel's eyes. She could become Carla-girl like a moment ago and she doesn't want that. Lu doesn't want that.

Lu needs her dinners.

The drawer in her bedroom is full of them. Sandwiches and apples and nut packets. Carla never checks if they've started to rot.

“Carla, she wouldn't want you to starve yourself to death,” Samuel's voice reaches her from a great, great distance. “Please. I don't wanna tell anyone, but I will if you don't talk to me.”

“You don't know anything,” Carla-ghost says. The real Carla's in her body, but she's hopeless and broken and the ghost is way stronger. Ghost-Carla has a friend; real Carla is all alone.

..I don't want to die I don't want to do any of this..

 _Nobody's starved to death by not eating in ten days_ , Lu whispers maliciously into her ear. _That would be too easy. You like things coming easy for you, no?_

“I'm gonna tell your parents,” Samuel says, voice now desperate.

_Unfortunately, you're gonna have to try harder this time._

“My parents don't care,” real Carla says, but it sounds like ghost-Carla because it's mean _and_ true.

_Good job. Me over him, remember?_

“I'm gonna tell the principal, then.”

_Best friends forever. Me over any guy, you over any guy. We'll always have each other._

“Just leave me alone!” Carla screams.

The real Carla screams, not the ghost-Carla, but Samuel doesn't know her, not enough, because he doesn't realize she's screaming at _Lu_ and not him.

He bows his head down. “Fine,” he tells the floor.

..I'm so sorry, Lu..

..I love you and I promise I won't leave you this time..

_I have to tell you one last thing. It wasn't Guzmán, it was me. It was my idea to take the car and it was my idea to sit Guzmán in the driver's seat. It was Polo who really drove, but he took some pills and I knew that he'd get in a lot more trouble than Guzmán, who was just drunk. I was really scared and it just – happened. I wish I could take it back._

_I'm really sorry about lying to everyone._

_Carla_

**Author's Note:**

> tumblr: [loquenomedices](https://loquenomedices.tumblr.com/)  
> don't hesitate to talk to me <3 thanks for reading and i hope you liked it <3  
> ps: ending open for interpretation (and yes the plot is a weird kind of merger between the two source materials. also the thing about hiding food for a dead person kind of came from the movie feed with tom felton and troian bellisario)


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